


Up, Down

by WingcommanderArthurShappey



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 16:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3141062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingcommanderArthurShappey/pseuds/WingcommanderArthurShappey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is in a philosophical mood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Up, Down

**Author's Note:**

> Written a couple of months ago to drag myself out of a depressive phase (it worked!), and just recently rediscovered.

Arthur remembers that when he was a bit younger than he’s now, he used to do something that seems a bit silly, looking back at it; not because doing it makes you silly, but because, if you start to realise that you could have been behaving in a way that made you happier, you feel like you’ve been wasting a really big part of your life doing something a bit pointless, and that's a really silly feeling.

(He’s not sure ten years can be called „a bit" younger than he's now, actually – it’s been quite a while since he realised the silliness of that thing he’d been doing all along, and to someone who’s twenty-eight and a half now, ten years sound like a long time. No, it’s definitely _not_ a bit, unless, maybe, you’re as old as Mum – and he absolutely never said or even thought that, because everyone knows Mum isn’t old, and what he really wanted to say was that ten years can be considered a bit if you’re one of those people that are about to celebrate their hundredth birthday, because to them, ten years is only a tenth of their life. Yes, brilliant, day saved, he absolutely hasn’t been thinking of Mum when he was talking about old people, so no one can be mad at him, especially not Mum.)

Oh, anyay – his thoughts are wandering off again, but what he actually wanted to tell you about was that thing that he used to do, but doesn’t do any longer because he realised that it’s silly. Here's it.

Younger, eighteen-year-old Arthur used to look at the ground when he walked, all the time, step by step, keeping his head down and staring at the street and at his shoes, which was brilliant on days when he wore the yellow or the red ones, but a bit less brilliant on weekdays, when he had to wear the black, shiny ones for school. Not that he didn’t like those, they were great – they just weren’t great to _wear_ , because they always felt like they were a bit too small for his feet, and he had to really take care of them and make sure that they stayed black and shiny and didn’t end up with lots of scratches and grey spots where the blackness slowly started to fade, and taking care of them didn’t only mean to polish them, but to take them off when he wanted to walk somewhere dangerous, like grass or sand or mud. Dangerous for the posh shoes, he means. Posh shoes don’t like grass, sand or mud. Posh shoes like even, solid streets and soft cloth to clean them with, and while they were brilliant to look at, he’s never really liked them. And on some days, they were the only thing he saw on his way to school and back, because he always kept his head down... down, down, down, until the muscles in the back of his neck strained with the weight of his head and started hurting, until his shoulders felt sore and tense. Really, Arthur will never do that again, and not just because it feels unpleasant.

He doesn’t know when he started it. It must have been somewhere between being a kid and starting to become a grown-up (technically speaking), because most kids don't look at the ground when they walk unless there's something interesting to see like many spat-out bubblegums or exciting chalk paintings... and Arthur never wanted to hide when he was outside, only when he was inside, and only sometimes.

So, he doesn’t know why or when the _whole looking down at his feet_ thing started. But what he does remember is the first time he looked up again, _really_ looked up. And he thinks that this is one of the many tiny things you just need to do – to look up. He remembers how different it felt to carry his head high and upright again, how much taller he felt, and how free, as if the wind could just pick him up and take him away, high up into the brilliant, blue sky. The sky that suddenly seemed to appear above Arthur, like it hadn’t been there all along, which he knew wasn’t true, but all of a sudden, it _was_ there, wide and infinite and full of light and clouds and, high up in the air, a tiny white airplane, like a shooting star with its fluffy white trail. There was sun, and there were trees, big and green, and houses, and although all of those things should have made Arthur feel small, he really just felt like he was a part of it all, like there was no point in hiding, because the world would see him anyway, so he might as well look back at it.

And from that day on, whenever he was catching himself walking with his chin so low it was almost touching his chest, shoulders hunched up as if he was trying to hide between them, he just told himself to be happy, and be proud of who he was, and of the fact that he was walking here, right now, which was a great thing to do, because there was really nowhere else he'd rather be now, was there?

And the great thing is - such a small motion can shift your entire world. The leaves on the pavement suddenly turn into trees, huge and full of life, with giant branches and rough bark, and you realise that they've been here all along, and only because you've been staring at the wrong parts of them all this time, the dead and dry ones, it doesn't make them less alive. And you begin to understand that the shadows on the pavement are only there because of the bright sunlight above your head, and that there are other people, too, and most of them are friendly and some of them pretend not to be there, just like you did a moment ago. There's a cat asleep on a window sill, and there are all sorts of different sounds  and smells in the air.

-

It's not easy to get rid of bad habits. But eventually, you succeed. (That is a posh word for "you can do it"). Eventually, you start getting more excited about going outside, about seeing all the houses and clouds and tasting the world with your eyes. Eventually - and this is really important - eventually, you feel like you _deserve_ to raise your head and be part of all the brilliant things you've been trying to hide from.

There's nothing shameful in hiding. Hiding can be really fun, and sometimes it's the only thing to do. But it's important to look up, too. Look up. Raise your head. And if you still feel like hiding then, that's completely okay. But perhaps you'll discover something brilliant. The best thing that can happen is that you'll discover how brilliant _you_ are.

 Oh, and also, there's less of a chance that you'll bump into other people because you weren't paying attention.

Other people, Arthur knows that by now, don't like being bumped into.

They're really, _very_ clear about that.

 


End file.
